Best practices for step 1/ Anki

[Strider_91]

Hi all,

M1 here, and I use Anki. I am doing okay so far but not as well as I want to in my classes. Scored right around the average on my first two exams, but I go to a p/f school without internal rank for the first two years.

So I use first aid to study and I am def getting the questions right on exams which are tested on step (based on FA) and seem to be getting minutae wrong that was mentioned in class or a little detail on a power point slide. I am basically investing all my effort into making sure I know whats important for step so obviously if I do poorly it will have been a dumb strategy.

I downloaded Zanki from reddit because those cards are comprehensive for step 1, but am I supposed to be doing those now as I move forward past the stuff I learned? How many cards are people doing/ day? what is the general rule of thumb for old cards/ day that people are doing? sometimes it feels like I can't even get through my current cards for my upcoming exams!

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[vernhart]

Personally I go with 50 new cards and up to 500 review, but I use bros (idk how many cards are in zanki); is it cards you have made for exams that you can't get through? There really shouldn't be any trouble from a pre-made deck getting through them all by the end of a block. That said, you are going to need more than just pre-made anki cards for your classes if you are not at a P/F and are worried about killing the curve.

 

[NotYou20]

Personally I go with 50 new cards and up to 500 review, but I use bros (idk how many cards are in zanki); is it cards you have made for exams that you can't get through? There really shouldn't be any trouble from a pre-made deck getting through them all by the end of a block. That said, you are going to need more than just pre-made anki cards for your classes if you are not at a P/F and are worried about killing the curve.

Same. 50/ day keeps reviews comfortably under 200/d and takes me about an hour. I think zanki has more cards so you'll probably want to do more. That said, I've accepted that at my pace I'll only get 75% through bros by April. You should get an idea of how much you want to get done and how much you realistically can get done.

 

[Strider_91]

Personally I go with 50 new cards and up to 500 review, but I use bros (idk how many cards are in zanki); is it cards you have made for exams that you can't get through? There really shouldn't be any trouble from a pre-made deck getting through them all by the end of a block. That said, you are going to need more than just pre-made anki cards for your classes if you are not at a P/F and are worried about killing the curve.

So I am having trouble getting through my cards I am making for my exams, when I combine it with practice problems. I am making my own cards for my school courses.

Do you only use a pre made deck for your courses? I am at a p/f school and would like to be doing above average but I would also like to study less, and if I had my choice of studying less and keeping the same grades vs. studying more and beating the curve id choose to study less.

 

[vernhart]

So I am having trouble getting through my cards I am making for my exams, when I combine it with practice problems. I am making my own cards for my school courses.

Do you only use a pre made deck for your courses? I am at a p/f school and would like to be doing above average but I would also like to study less, and if I had my choice of studying less and keeping the same grades vs. studying more and beating the curve id choose to study less.

I'm MS2 so what I'm doing now isn't really what you should be doing. I'm pretty heavy on step 1 prep and sacrificing on exams heavily. I would make sure you aren't making too many cards if you are going to try to do both. Personally in first year I think Bros is good if you have NBME finals, but the pre-made decks are not enough for your school tests. For those I watched recorded lectures, then went through ppt slides until I had them memorized (too lazy to make cards myself, but treated the slides almost as flash cards; that said, anki is probably much better but you have to be smart about what you make into cards and you have to be efficient). I read through FA and did bros on the side just to make sure I had the very high yield material down. Bottom line is you need to understand course material outside of just step resources.